Quote from: kraterion on January 06, 2018, 07:46:52 PM

Don't know if you read this fantastic write up, I'll just leave it here (it makes you think why the hell ark isn't valued at least $25 right now):

Hey, everyone. We know there has been a lot of FUD and confusion over what exactly the Ark Team's vision for the project is and where their priorities lie. We, the founders of the biz_classic delegate, spoke to Grexx, a co-founder and advisor, and wrote a summary of our discussion over the future of Ark. This should hopefully address a lot of issues that have been raised here over the past few months.

There is a vision. We just need everyone to know what we know.

The Three Components

Component 1: The core network, aka the Ark mainchain, which will be used as the main blockchain through which other blockchains will communicate; this is the backbone of the Ark Ecosystem. The Ark token will also be the basic currency within this ecosystem, much like Ether is the basic currency within the Ethereum ecosystem.

Component 2: ArkVM on push-button-deployed blockchains. The ArkVM will not be on the Ark mainchain as to not bloat it up (see: cryptokitties and popular ERC20 ICOs). ArkVM enabled chains can be used to create applications and services that can be used by users in other Ark-connected blockchains in the ecosystem. This sandboxes popular dApps into their own blockchain to not adversely affect other projects in the ecosystem. While these self-contained chains running their own dApps are sandboxed, they can interact with the outside world by bridging to the Ark mainchain. Holders of Ark, or other Ark-forked coins, will be able to trigger smart contracts on different connected blockchains using the Smartbridge.

Component 3: Point. Click. Blockchain. To create an active ecosystem of connected blockchains, the team is working on making blockchains easily deployable and manageable. The team started by wanting to create their own blockchain network that would all be connected through a central technology and all use one token. Their goal is still to build that and to make it available for everyone, everywhere with very minimal programming knowledge. Once the first two components are complete (Core v2 and ArkVM), the teams energy will be focused on creating a user-friendly system for deploying blockchains.

Consider Ark an easily deployable DPoS-based Ethereum that anyone can launch in minutes with the ability to interconnect applications and services using the Ark Mainchain to process these cross-chain payments -- all without bloat

The goal is still to create bridges to ETH, BTC, etc. but that is more of a bi-product of the core platform we are building.

Features of the Ark Ecosystem:

Easily deployable blockchains that will automatically be Smartbridge-enabled

Smart Contracts via the ArkVM running in different connected blockchains Blockchain modules

Chains in the ecosystem will be able to pick and choose different modules to enable for their chain (like ArkVM) much like Wordpress has an extensive plug-in library for many different Wordpress installations

Delegate marketplaces to find people to run your chains

Beginnings of the Ark Ecosystem

Kapu, a blockchain for archaeological data

Blockpool, a B2B blockchain solution providing tokens for businesses

Persona, a new Ark-connected fork, is likely to be the first major Smartbridge blockchain that will serve a key component in the overall ecosystem, identity management. Imagine a single sign on system that has users pre-authorized KYC/AML done and the ability to work with all Ark Ecosystem chains out of the box

PR and Marketing

The team is working on solidifying their message and vision into proper marketing materials and presentations.

Authors note: Ive noticed a difference between their old and new marketing materials. While older materials like the ones in their Bitcointalk thread focused on the Smartbridge and interoperability, the newer ones (like the official YouTube videos) all say Point. Click. Blockchain instead which supports the grand vision of creating an ecosystem of easily deployable and customizable blockchains. Creating the ecosystem will require interoperability via the Smartbridge, of course, but the main focus seems to be making these deployed chains interoperable instead of connecting existing chains like Ethereum, Bitcoin, etc. Of course, that doesnt mean the community cant step in and provide that interoperability. See: ACES

The team is also focusing on hackathons to get the Ark brand and blockchain technology out to young budding developers that may one day deploy and build chains for the ecosystem. Theyre playing the long game here.

Development

The Ark team is currently working with several contracted development teams to help implement and bring together each component. The development team is definitely larger than just the Ark Core developer, Fx (Francois-Thoorens), and the handful of community hires. According to Fx, there is currently a contracted development team assisting in building the ArkVM.

IoT and Smartcards

A common community concern is that the whitepaper lists too much and the team is trying to do too many things at once. Ark was created because the team all wanted to build their own blockchain projects but their projects would all be isolated and incompatible. Hardware (IoT) and Smartcards are projects team members wanted to work on which is why they were included in the whitepaper. A lot of these will be secondary projects once the core platform is complete and team members will transition to working on them as projects within the ecosystem. For now, the team is focused on building a stable mainchain (Ark Core v2) and the ecosystem (Pushbutton deployable chains + ArkVM).

IoT: Mike Doty, Arks managing director, is really interested in hardware and will probably be working on building IoT devices that will communicate with each other over an Ark-deployed chain.

Smartcards: Initially it would be loadable with Ark and would be an Ark token focused card. If someone had tokens on ecosystem chains, they could use the bridges to convert to Ark and load the card seamlessly.

Technical Details & Value of Ark Coins

The "Smartbridge" (aka Vendorfield) is just a text field that's bundled with every transaction. It is not a technology in and of itself. The value of that text field comes from the technology that's built on top of it such as ACES or the deployed chains using that field to send messages across blockchains.

Delegates in the deployed chains will also be running Ark Nodes in addition to the nodes for their own blockchain. This means every deployed chain's delegates will also have their own Ark address and will require a stash of Ark coins to facilitate communication with the ecosystem. There is incentive to be a part of the Ark Ecosystem (and incentive to buy/hold Ark) due to the services that will exist within it.

The team is improving their communication with the community. This summary is proof of that by engaging with one of the largest community delegates (biz_classic). If there are any further questions regarding the project please ask them and the biz_classic delegate will forward them to Grexx and other team members.

Excellent words! congrats for your explanation!

DeeDee_2

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